Cellular Chorus
by Patricia Wolf
Cellular Chorus is a spatialized, aleatoric sound piece that transforms the ubiquitous smartphone into a tool for people within a physical space to become collaborative performers of a soundscape. This project uses a mobile website, cellularchorus.com, to supply an audience with harmonically congruous sounds and melodies. The sounds are designed to be played through smartphone speakers and for this reason, are easily spread through the location by each participant. Through exploring the sounds and carefully listening to one another, an interesting soundscape takes shape. To add nuance to the piece, the audience can mix the volume levels of the sounds in and out and move around a space to create an immersive surround sound environment.
Participants are encouraged to explore their surroundings and discover ways of using the acoustic properties of their environment. Players can affect the sounds of Cellular Chorus by using their smartphones in novel ways like utilizing their hands or mouths on the phone speakers to create resonance or to produce an amplitude modulation effect by covering and uncovering the speakers in a rhythmic way. Witnessing interesting and unforeseen interactions is part of the joy of presenting Cellular Chorus to new audiences.
After several performances in Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere around the world, groups who have learned of this project attest that Cellular Chorus naturally encourages deep listening and collaboration.
This project satisfies the human impulse to connect with others. It also blurs the barrier between artist and audience. Making music and sharing ideas with new people is a vulnerable and exciting act. This performance is a way for those both new and experienced in working with sound to work together. All the sounds in Cellular Chorus are either atonal field recordings or are composed in the black key pentatonic scale. It is not possible to play the piece out of key. Cellular Chorus will teach people to trust themselves and others to experiment with sound. It invites people to communicate and connect with those they may not know, share ideas, and to have a role in an interactive and immersive auditory and light experience.
The technical requirements for Cellular Chorus call for participants to appear at a predetermined site with their smartphones charged and ready to access the internet. Cellular Chorus also incorporates the colored light cast from the displays of the participant’s smartphone screens and can best be seen in a darkened room.
Concept + sound design by Patricia Wolf. Web design + development by Jaron Heard.
Photo courtesy of Michael Yun
About Patricia Wolf:
Patricia Wolf is a musician, sound designer, and curator residing in Portland, Oregon. Wolf uses electronics, voice, and field recordings to produce non-linear compositions that draw listeners into a hypnotic inner world. Her use of melody, repetition, and phase shifting manipulate the listeners' perception of time, conjuring vivid textures and atmospheres. In addition to working as a sound designer for Novation, Wolf is also the co-founder of Variform, a gallery and curatorial organization that focuses on sound art and modern composition. She is a recipient of the Precipice Fund, a grant funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts.
Links:
A write up about Cellular Chorus by Marc Weidenbaum of Disquiet
https://disquiet.com/2020/02/25/cellular-chorus-patricia-wolf/
A project with members of the Disquiet Junto using the source audio from Cellular Chorus to construct an arrangement from the parts.
https://disquiet.com/2020/02/27/disquiet-junto-project-0426-cellular-chorale/
Variform Gallery
Patricia Wolf’s CV
Sound Design Work:
Official sound designer for the Novation Peak and Summit synthesizers. I was also hired to make a video to demonstrate their SL MkIII MIDI controller and to discuss my approach to sound design. (2018-2019)
Sound designer for the educational touchscreen multiplayer video game Earthquake Heroes that educates children on how to prepare and respond to a major earthquake event in Portland OR. It is installed at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It was a city, state, and federal project implemented by Civic Platform. (2019-2021)
3D sound design for a virtual reality game, “Walking A Turtle” with artist Jeremy Rotsztain who was awarded a grant for the project by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Notable performances:
11.25.20 Performance of Cellular Chorus at the International School Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam as part of a unit on 20/21st Century composition techniques. The students also performed Cellular Chorus in front of an audience at the school.
04.02.20 Live-streamed performance part of the “CloseUp Non-Stop” series hosted by the Ferrara Sotto Le Stelle Festival to raise funds to support those affected by the COVID-19 crisis in Northern Italy.
02.27.20 Performance of Cellular Chorus at Knot architecture firm for their monthly Creative Space Gathering. The principal and director used my performance to demonstrate an example of spatialized sound to their designers for research for an upcoming architectural project involving spatialized audio.
02.06.20 Performance of Cellular Chorus + live quadraphonic addition with Marcus Fischer, wndfrm, and Francisco Botello at Leaven Community Center in Portland, Oregon
11.07.19 Performance of Cellular Chorus at Portland State University
11.07.19 Live performance with Seefeel and Wild Card in Portland, OR
6.19.19- Live performance with Steve Hauschildt and Michael Vallera at Holocene in Portland, OR
6.14.19 S1 Synth Library live improv Performance in Portland, OR
4.29.19 Live performance with Marcus Fischer, Cruel Diagonals, Chloe Alexandra Thompson, and Michael Yun at Holocene in Portland, OR
4.17.19 Live performance with Inne Eyserman & Liew Niyomkarn, and Chloe Alexandra Thompson in Portland, OR
11.04.18 Live performance with Matthew Dear at Holocene in Portland, OR
10.18.18 Live performance with Marcus Fischer and Hotel Neon at Disjecta in Portland, OR
9.10.18 Portland Institute of Contemporary Art TBA Festival performance of a reimagined score for Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête. in Portland, Oregon
11.18.17 Live techno performance with Headless Horseman in Portland, OR
3.19.17 Live performance with John Chantler in Seattle, Washington
3.17.17 Live techno performance with Silent Servant in Portland, Oregon
11.26.16 Quadraphonic ambient performance at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon
7.30.16 Ambient performance at Chapel Performance Space with Ricardo Donoso and Raica in Seattle, Washington
7.9.16 Ambient/Experimental performance at TUF Festival w/ Elysia Crampton, Kaori Suzuki, Seattle, Washington
(2017- current)
Co- Founder + Curator
of Variform Gallery
Variform, founded by CM & Patricia Wolf in 2017, was a gallery for sound installation and modern composition located in downtown Portland, OR, USA. Under the name Variform, CM & Patricia Wolf continue to curate similar events at a variety of locations in the Portland, Oregon area.
Variform has received funding for our exhibitions and public sound installation work from organizations such as the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Calligram Foundation, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
Notable Variform
exhibitions
include works by:
Kara-Lis Coverdale
Marcus Fischer
Pita (Editions Mego)
Eric Frye
Chloe Alexandra Thompson
Tim Westcott
Ben Glas
Aki Tsuyuko
Burke Jam
Dolphin Midwives
Meroitic
Kevin Holden